Well, the work thing ended with her wanting to apologize to me. i said 'yes' but told my boss that i'd only do it with her there. That if it was an apology, great, but it didn't want it to turn into a discussion that would become a blame game. She understood.

So, a meeting was scheduled. Then, postponed, rescheduled, postponed and rescheduled. Work stuff.

Finally, i showed up to the meeting and my boss was already there. We waited on the woman that wanted to do the apology. She finally showed after us sitting there for about 10 minutes. She was smiley and bouncy and sat down. Said that she wasn't a violent person and i shouldn't have taken it that way. i sat and listened. She apologized. i listened. she didn't give me room to say anything.

Then, she said again that i shouldn't have taken the 'strike 2' to be aggressive. i listened. no response. she started to say things that would poke me to respond, i didn't. She must have realized she was turning bully again, and back peddled a little, finishing with, 'well i just wanted to apologize and hope we can get back on even footing'. Then, she paused enough for me to say something at that point.

i accepted her apology, graciously i think, and said thank you. But, that was it.

She left.

i turned to my boss and she asked me if that was acceptable. i said yes and that i would take it at face value and start a fresh relationship with her tomorrow. She said her and i would meet in a week and see how things were going. that's great with me.

Now.....to me this was a personal success. Why?

Because in the past, i would be so convinced that i had done something to deserve it or would have been so wanting to fix things that i would have taken the blame. In the past if someone had offered an apology like that (assuming i would have been courageous enough to tell anyone), i would have responded with 'oh it's ok', or 'oh, maybe i blew it out of proportion', or somehow i would have deflected the seriousness of it. i didn't do that this time. i let her make the apology and take away the realization that she had done something wrong. AND didn't let them put the blame on me.